


The Sun Is A Lonely Star

by bluefiire



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Kylo is a giant idiot and gets sunburnt, Rey is nicer than she needs to be, Reylo - Freeform, not really fluff but kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-08 01:29:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14683593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluefiire/pseuds/bluefiire
Summary: Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader, master of the knights of Ren, has a sunburn. And it hurts.Kylo is an idiot who doesn't understand his feelings and Rey is more helpful than she needs to be.





	The Sun Is A Lonely Star

**Author's Note:**

> Something little inspired by my own sun-based suffering this week. Takes place some time after episode VII.

 Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader, master of the knights of Ren, has a sunburn. And it _hurts._

  
He lays sprawled on his stomach across the too-small cot aboard his ship, trying to stay motionless while still continuing to breathe.  He’s felt far, far worse pain worse than this before, but this time there‘s no rush of fight-or-flight adrenaline, no dark-fueled anger, and no pride at a victory won to soothe him. Pair that with the shame of a sunburn of all things bringing him to his knees, well, it’s no surprise that the itching and burning is slowly driving him out of his mind.

He shifts slightly, and groans in frustration as the skin pulls tight across his reddened back. His last fit of rage had put the medical droid out of commission for good, and the charred remains of it and the shelves containing first-aid supplies still smolder in a chamber across the hall from his cot. He mentally kicks himself for that one. Trashing a terminal in the _Finalizer_ ’s bridge was one thing - the maintenance crew could replace anything in minutes at this point - but destroying potentially helpful items in his personal ship was another. His emotions have been getting the best of him as of late.  
  
Half an hour later, Kylo leans his forehead against the cool metal of the cot’s edge, and re-counts the panels on the wall across from him. After confirming that the number hasn’t changed since last time, he begins again.  Perhaps he should be reading and responding to the messages that keep blinking into light on his holopad, but his brain has gone dull and any attempt to read inches the whisper of a headache that much closer to becoming a full on migraine. With ten hours in hyperspace left to go, there’s not much he can do but wait. He’s never been so eager to return from a mission. Kriff, at this point he’d even be glad to see the eternally annoying Hux.  
  
Maybe his brain has melted, because from the corner of his eye he catches a glimpse of ginger hair. That can’t be right. Hux is on a ship far from here, probably barking orders at underlings and acting pompous. He turns his head at an awkward angle, ignoring the sharp protest from the particularly burned places on the back of his neck.  The figure moves again. No, that’s definitely brown hair, not the snarky general’s ginger strands. Wrong color or not, Hux definitely wouldn’t be on his ship brushing his hair and humming an old resistance tune. Kylo’s muddled brain scrambles furiously, until -

 No. Nonono, this was not happening. Not now.  He tries to slip out of the bond before Rey realizes his presence, but there’s no release available. He slams his mind against the confines of the bond, but it won’t budge and he only succeeds in making his head swim from the effort.

 She’s in sleep clothes, shorts and a tank top that looked suspiciously like it came from a former stormtrooper. He’s suddenly aware of how exposed his bare, burnt skin is, and he prays that she doesn’t turn around.  
  
He stills himself, and wills his body and mind to be quiet while he watches her finish combing her hair. She places the brush somewhere, and deftly plaits her hair into a loose braid. The tops of her shoulders are pink. She frowns, examines them in a mirror that Kylo can’t see, and he has to resist a dark chuckle. He wonders, not for the first time, if the Force has a sick sense of humor.  
  
“Go away” she says in a tired voice. There’s no fight in her words really; they’ve long since realized there’s no stopping a force bond. This verbal sparring is more from habit than anything. Forgetting his decision to stay quiet, his response is just as automatic.

  
“Believe me, I would like nothing more than to be gone from your mind right now,”  Kylo drawls. An idea occurs to him, slightly cruel, but perhaps useful. He fakes a yawn.  “Bring me back when you’re doing something less ... mundane” Getting a rise out of Rey might encourage her to shut the bond down, since he’s unable to escape from his end.  
  
It doesn’t work, because when has _anything_ ever gone according to plan with her.  
  
Rey whirls around, and he’s encouraged by the fire in her eyes. He can feel the bond wavering, on the verge of snapping shut when her eyes land on his back, and the hard line of her mouth softens.  
  
“Ben, what did you do?” she asks. he stiffens at the name but does nothing, resolutely ignoring her gaze once it had found him. He’s counted to the eleventh wall panel again when he hears sniffs and deep breaths. For a bewildered moment he wonders if she’s crying.  Then, a hiccup and a bright chime of laughter rings throughout the ship. She’s l _aughing_ at him! Kylo looks back at her, scowling. She's truly in a fit, eyes squeezed shut and watering, chest heaving as she fights to keep her laughter in check.

 “You’re so …. So _red_!” Her resolve fails, and the bright sound echoes in his head once again.    
  
Kylo rolls his eyes in annoyance. He should be enraged, should be eager to duel anyone who dares laugh at supreme leader Ren; but he is tired, and her pretty laugh doesn’t bother him nearly as much as it should.  
Pretty? He furrows his brows as Rey lets out one last chuckle. Where had _that_ thought come from? He files it away for later examination, and turns his attention back to the scavenger who found his plight so funny.  
  
“Are you quite done?” He asks, working hard to still sound bored. He sits up on the the cot but bending his arms and twisting his shoulders sends a bolt of fire across his limbs. His face screws up in a grimace involuntarily. Rey giggles again but it’s quieter, and this time her eyes are soft with concern.  
  
“Emperor Ren, are you perhaps suffering from a sunburn?” She asks in a near perfect imitation of his medical droid - before he’d slashed it to bits. He nods, trying to keep those images separate, then frowns momentarily as he wonders why he finds it to be a problem. The sun truly has gone to his head.  Rey’s quick eyes notice the change in expression and she raises an eyebrow. She comes closer, and sits on something in her chambers, looking for all the world like she’s sitting on his cot. Kylo scrambles to find something to say that isn’t related to his intrusive thoughts.  
  
“Your planet isn’t exactly hospitable,” he manages to get out, mentally kicking himself for the second time today. _Way to tell the enemy your secrets, Ren._ His inner monologue falters as he feels cool fingers brushing across the purplish-red burns on his shoulders. The hand stops once she’s processed what was said, but she doesn’t move it away.  
  
“You were on Jakku?” Her voice is incredulous, and he doesn’t look at her. To avoid spilling any more secrets, he keeps his answer short.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
He can feel Rey studying him intently from her seat beside him on the cot, but he keeps his gaze trained on the wall panels straight ahead. She nods, as if deciding on something, and draws her hand away.  
  
“You were on _Jakku,”_ she says again,  “and didn’t wear a shirt?”  Some of the laughter has crept back into her voice, and he turns to glare at her over his shoulder.  
  
“A band of thugs jumped me. They were quickly dealt with, but one of them tore my shirt to ribbons.” He sniffs at the memory, the surprise of being caught unaware still stinging at his pride.  
  
Rey shrugs. “Folks from Jakku are tougher than people expect.”  
  
“That, I can attest to.” Kylo half laughs, and he feels Rey’s eyes flicker to the scar across his cheek. Her scar, he’d started calling it, but she doesn’t need to know that. He shivers when her hand runs across his back again.  
  
“When I was younger,” she begins speaking quietly, and Kylo wonders if she’s talking for his benefit or for hers, “I got burned this bad too. I took off my outer layers for a nap in the shade of a tent, but I slept too long and woke up in the sun. I was so burned, and I felt like if I moved my skin would crack into a million pieces, or my head would explode. I didn’t scavenge for three days as it healed, and I didn’t eat for three days after that because of it.”  
  
Kylo glances over his shoulder at Rey, who’s staring into nothing. He’s been wallowing in his inconvenience for most of a standard day, but she had faced this for real, with real-life consequences. His stomach tightens as he thinks of just how much toughness it had taken for Rey to even survive long enough to become his enemy. Though to be fair it was hard to think of her in those terms while she’s tracing her finger across his back in soft sweeping shapes he’s sure she doesn’t realize she’s making. He twitches involuntarily when she sweeps across his shoulder blades, and that seems to shake her reverie.  
  
“So, Mr. Ren” she says, eyes snapping back into focus, “when the people who live in the desert don’t go anywhere without covering up, You. Should. Too.” She punctuates the last few words with sharp pokes at his shoulders,  and he shies away from the painful turn her touch had taken.

“Hey, easy” he hisses from between clenched teeth. The throbbing in his head is returning in the absence of her touch, and his parched throat makes the words rasp. 

She gets to her feet then, and the space beside him feels very, _very_ empty.

She paces back and forth while she studies him, and he tries not to squirm under her intense scrutiny. She frowns. “Don’t you have medical supplies somewhere?”

“No.” he says, not exactly lying, but still he’s grateful that she can’t see his surroundings. The heaped remains of the medical droid aren’t something he wants to discuss, or think about, ever.

 Rey sighs. “Get your cape then.” 

Kylo’s head is pounding now, and he can’t resist a jab. “Why, so you can tell me to cover up? It’s a bit late for that.”

Rey’s cheeks redden, “blockhead, I’m trying to _help_.”

That shuts him up. He rises slowly from the cot, and picks up the pile of black fabric from where he’d thrown it on the floor after arriving on Jakku. He had decided that the sweeping robe would be far too hot over his clothes on the desert planet within seconds of his ship’s hatch opening, and he’d tossed it to the floor before stalking his way down the ramp.

He stands in front of Rey now, holding the cape and waiting for instructions. _Docile, like a pet,_ a small evil part of him whispers, but the bending movement had sent a fresh wave of painful itches up his spine, and who better to learn sunburn remedies from than the prime desert rat herself?

“Put water on it,” she says.  He walks slowly to the fresher with as little upper body movement as possible. After tossing the cape in the sink and turning the water tap on, he leans against the cool metal wall, just barely holding back from making obscene noises of relief. “Drink some water too,” she says gently.  He does, giving up entirely on justifying his obedient behavior, and the viselike grip of his headache loosens somewhat.

In moments the cape is soaked and wrung out to Rey’s liking, and he shuffles back to the cot, arranging himself the best he can on the too-small frame in the same position Rey had found him in earlier. She had taken the cape from him - he’d worry about it later how that worked - and she lays it across his burned skin with more care than he expects from a girl who just last week had tried to cut his head off. The damp fabric falls across his skin like a cooling wave, and this time he can’t contain the groan of appreciation. Rey’s ears go pink, and she steps back quickly.

“Re-wet that if it gets too warm,” she says briskly, “and keep drinking water. It’ll heal faster if you’re hydrated.”

 With the burning sensation muffled by the wet cape, Kylo’s eyes begin to droop closed. It feels so _good_ , Rey was so _good,_ he-.  His eyes snap open as the edges of the bond warp again. “wait.”  he says, and the warping, leaving feeling stills. Rey looks down upon him with an expression that he cannot place.

 “Why did you help me?” he asks.

 Rey is silent for a moment, looking anywhere but at him. “Someone should have helped me when I needed it.” she says, so quietly that he has to strain to hear her.  He’s breathing in to respond when her gaze returns to him and she quickly adds, “I also want you to be a worthwhile opponent next time we meet. It’s no fun fighting you when you’re broken.”

With that she disappears, the bond snapping shut. Kylo lets out a long slow breath, and then a small chuckle. Closing his eyes, he lets the comforting weight of the cool fabric take over his senses.  He’ll be a worthwhile opponent next time, if that’s what she wants so much. He drifts into sleep on the tiny cot, letting the cool weight of the cape draw him into a restful, dreamless slumber.

 


End file.
